SO ASTON Villa did sign a ‘Proper Charlie’ to pull the strings in midfield during the January transfer window after all.

But, despite a month of fall outs with Blackpool over the pursuit of Ian Holloway’s precious captain, it was not Charlie Adam.

On Saturday’s evidence, the Proper Charlie in the middle of the park was Jean II Makoun following his senseless sending-off.

It took some doing for Makoun to steal the spotlight for all the wrong reasons on a day which was all about Holloway v Houllier.

But the Cameroon midfield maestro shared equal billing with claret and blue nemesis, referee Howard Webb, when it came to the villains of the piece at a bouncing full-to-the-brim Bloomfield Road.

Makoun’s late lunge at DJ Campbell prompted a straight red card on 70 minutes and left Villa clinging onto a point when, earlier in the game, they seemed destined for all three. We’ll come to Webb later.

The former Lyon star’s needlessly premature departure summed up a strangely subdued second half performance from Villa, who should have been 3-0 up early on.

Holloway admitted Villa played “on fast forward” during the opening stages while the Seasiders produced the slowest start of his reign before recovering to end a five-game losing streak.

Makoun was instrumental in Villa’s initial superiority, winning the ball deep inside his own half to launch a ruthlessly rapid counter attack which culminated in Gabby Agbonlahor’s tenth-minute opener.Nigel Reo-Coker, whose hustle and bustle vindicated Houllier’s decision to leave creaking captain Stiliyan Petrov out of the squad completely, passed to Darren Bent just inside Seasiders’ territory.

Villa’s record signing is often accused of being a goalscoring one-trick pony. Well, he added another to his repertoire with the wonderfully-weighted first time touch to send Agbonlahor clear.